We love President Obama. We - read as the Incredible Indians. President Obama - read as the saviour of Kenya & the rest of the world. Infact we love anyone who is nice to us. We loved Clinton when he said "Tandoori kebabs should rule the world", we loved Bush when he carried India through the civilian nuclear deal... Heck! We even loved Danny Boyle when he won accolades for showcasing Indian slums.

But, we love Obama for much more: He cut war funding to Pakistan, he had a potrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his senate office & he proclaimed that New Delhi is Washington's natural strategic partner! .. and last time we heard there were rumours floating around that he has a Ganesh idol and has read the Ramayan! Nice Mr. Obama! You could not have done it better. The funny thing is that a lot of us do not even agree with the Gandhian ideologies and definitly none of us has ever bothered about the war in Talibstan. Yet, we followed him as he stumbled through his oath to presidency, we listened to him through the night as he took the weight of the whole world on his shoulders & we watched him dance coyly with the first lady thereafter. And everyone noticed that! Our political parties for one. Rumour has it that one of them even has a huge poster up in the city of mug-shots of their goons with Obama in the center. HA!! and you thought we could just copy-paste your films!! And your software... and your designs... your patents... toilet paper... erm.. okay fine, you knew we would get to Obama someday too!

The interesting part is that with all the Obama hoopla going around no Indian party is exploiting his "We want change" brand for the upcoming elections. Now, these elections are super-duper important for us. For me atleast. I am 26 years old. I will be voting for the first time in these elections. Yes, I did not exploit my right for the last 8 years. At 18 I was going mad preparing for IIT and could not bother much about the guys making the reservation rules, at 20 I was studying in South India (and discovering for the first time that the south of India does not comprise only of Madrasis!), at 24 I was way too much in love with my first job and slogged past mid-night for months until I realised no one gives a damn and that night-balcony-Bangalore-weather is right up there above gallons of chocolate chip ice cream. Or with it! So what has changed now? Have I been influenced by the Jago-Re campaign? Or is it because they came to our office and made us sit down like 2 year olds and fill in our forms and then submitted it also for us? I guess the latter. We like it when people do things for us. We also like them when they are nice to us. But what do I do now? Do I vote for either of the two leading parties - One who is losing ground and the Other who can't protect women against violence? Or do I vote for the third - which comprises of people from all flavours of India. People with no clear leader. And while trillions of rupees are being siphoned off for this election I wonder - What about the war in Pakistan? How long can the people of that country hold guard against Taliban? How long before they get access to nuclear power? What about the infiltration of refugees from surrounding countries? What about the recession and the people who are losing their job today? Where do our leader stand on these issues?

Recently, I have started following the 2009 election debates. Sessions where party spokesperson come and play the blame game. "Sir, can you give me assurance you will not go and join Party X again?". "In that year when you did X my party protested and we were right". "Sir, you were not with this party at that time". "Maybe not, I still supported the ideologies".
What crap! I do not care what you did in year X with party Y for reason Z. Tell me what you will do over the next 4 years. Tell me where you stand on global issues. And for heaven's sake send your leader to speak.. not some polished yappy speaker. If you care about positioning my country at an advantage in these times. If you care about providing me a good life. If you have people around you who have the competency to deliver this then showcase them to me. I will follow you as speak. I will follow you through your oath. I will follow you as you stumble across your first decisions as the leader of this country. I will follow you because you care.

Our Wedding

Anushree & Raghavendra

21st December 2008

Charans Club & Resort, Lucknow

Invite

The singing dog

2:00 am

Logged into orkut. No, my life is not that bad. Seriously! Shuttled around a bit on the social network dodging people. Now I am up and wide awake, checking e-mails, blogging and saving the world from disaster in ways-you-would-not-understand. The summer heat is stifling me so I open the balcony door a wee-bit. 10 mins of dead silence and now I can hear a drunked party speeding on the intermediate ring road. SRK looms ahead with his blood-red airtel logo. I wish those guys don't hit an electricity pole at the next turn. The _DS logo is blinking ahead. Doggy Shit. The storm spun off from Nargis had managed to rip the N off a few days ago. Also the huge bill-board at the 'lal-batti' junction that had come battling down in fury & crashed in the rain.

2:15 am

Earlier in the evening I had gifted myself a "Learn how to play the Guitar" coffee-table book. Do not snigger at the title. It is a beautifully crafted book with white-yellow covers and bold black n' blue titles. They even have all the chords drawn out in the last few pages. 2:15 am is not a bad time for a new beginning. Yes! Yes! I pull out my gb&a and my uber-favourite black pick. Chapter 4: finger picking techniques. I push out the balcony door to full so that the music can waft in through open windows to my neighbours - they are nice people. I start with slow strumming.

2:20 am

Not a soul screams back. See, I told you - nice people. Knopfler now? The book offers me good advice - which I carefully avoid, and continue with my usual... hotel california, time of my life... and thats when it happens. A dog starts howling in that shady alley in-between our apartment and the nalla beside Oasis mall. I look down from my balcony and identify the creature, he is really not looking in any particular direction but he has stopped howling now. I strum a few carefull patterns and peak down my balcony again. There he is at it again - howling at his best!

2:30 am

My flat mate is up and at my door. I strum again - the dog howls - and I point exhuberantly first towards my guitar - then the dog - and then my guitar again and wait for her to make the connection! She rolls up her eyes and mutters sumthing that sounds like "It's no big deal (ass-hole)" and then a few more expletives. Yeah, I know I suck at my guitar! But this dog appreciates it! That means something, right? Damn right it does! Wicked world....

2:41 am

Rolled up in blankets and dreams nudging. Come by tommorow night and we shall play to the music again.

Coffee & Mocha

I don't get most of the coffee shops littering the bylanes of the city.

Now, dont get me wrong. I get that bit about ripping-us-off for the Rs. 20 chocolate topping. But why create a mockery of the whole coffee experience? They shoo you out like cockroaches the moment you take the last sip. Their seating arrangement could resemble a funeral party and their music sounds like from one too. It's such a farce, but I understand that some mentally ill folk think that's the right direction to take.

But then, some guys out there are winning tonns of love for their efforts. Step into Brew-ha-ha and the owner would gladly join you for a game of Scrabble. Heck! he would even help you defeat that 'oh, so arrogant' guy sitting across you! Get you extra cushions and play your music.

Last night I went to Mocha, the coffee shop off 100ft road at Koramangala. It was quite late, 11 pm to be exact, but I felt I deserved some pampering and a better cup of coffee (I had just gotten out of CCD half an hour back). The barista could guess we were in for a long round of talk so he walks by and says "We are closing down in a few minutes but you can sit back and relax." Ain't that the sweetest thing ever? He even ran across the street to get us mosquito repellant coils close to mid-night. And the best, they give you their bill in a cup full of coffee beans. I told him I loved the beans. He got me back some as a return gift. I am carrying it around in my jeans pocket these days to get the heavy coffee odor in! :)

Earthhour

29th March. 8pm. Switch off for 1 hour!


Earthhour is happening. Switch off and indulge in a candle night dinner, take a evening walk, speak to your neighbours or just ramble in the darkness!

Swanthana

A couple of months ago we started working with Swanthana, an organization for street-abandoned children who are differently enabled. We started with going out in small groups of 3-4 to understand their needs. The children needed some physiotherapy equipment; we bought them some. Spend a day blowing up the physiotherapy balls in different sizes. Most of the credit goes to Raj for that! They also needed a children's park. We worked on a meager budget with a lot of contributions coming from our team itself. These are special kids and a normal kid's park is not suitable for them. We worked with a vendor to tweak the swings to suit their needs. The merry-go-round came with sit-in bucket seats to support their backs. The slide with a different plastic material so that they woudn't hurt themselves. Also a jungle gym for which the guys in our team dug 1 metre deep trenches in the torrid Indian sun.

Then, a few days ago we went to see how the kids were doing. We know most of them by name now. The biggest feat for most of us!! (there are 35 kids at Swanthana). Starting right from cudly little babies to 13 year olds who can beat you at a game of basket ball the moment you blink. My team is quite special in that way. They jump at opportunites to sacrifice their weekends, dig out stones weighing kilos with a chisel, paint parks (and their clothes!) and baby-sit kids at Swanthana. And yes, we also love going out of the city on weekends together. Our next trip is to Wayanad, Kerala, which we are trying to convert into an eco trip. Its nothing phenomenal. On the two days that we will be there trekking along the hills of Wayanad we plan to carry those big black garbage disposal bags and collect all the litter thrown away by tourists. I know its not something that is gonna have a lasting effect on the landscape. But the cleaner surrounding might just prevent that next tourist from swishing his cola can on the way.

If anyone has organized or been a part of an eco trip (not read as euro trip :0) ) do give us your suggestions.

Giant Spiders and more!

I love going to Ma and Papa's new place. I miss them loads when I am here at Bangalore. That and their new house is on the mountains and a quick 10 minutes drive from the sea! Yeah! I am the ungrateful devil. Spiked tail n' all.

The lazy brat that I am, this time round Dad actually measured my day time on the garden hammock. It stood at a good 80% of my holiday duration. Not bad, huh? Well, you can't blame me. It puts the La-Z-Boy to shame. The dense evergreen forest infront of our garden beckons you. And if you get up a bit early you can play with the clouds floating by. Thats not all! While on this trip, I got lost trekking on a mountain and fought giant spiders; slept on street bench in Singapore for a good 2 hours in the night, but more on that later.

Malaysia is a haven for any nature lover. Tioman, Langkawi, Pekan, KL are all awesome places to flirt by. If you want to fall in love with the country you have to go to the local's favourites: Chempadak beach, where you can fly the most beautiful giant kites and get the cheapest and best foot massage, Panching waterfall, which forms a natural water pool you could swim in all day, and Taman Negara, their 130 million year old tropical forest which takes 10 days to trek across when the weather is clear.

A couple of places in this world have enchanted me yet - State Street at Madison, Chempadak beach at Kuantan and Clark Quay at Singapore. This place is alive. Even at 4 o'clock in the night! You can stroll down the river front, take a boat ride (they even do dinner for 2) and sit on the bridge lining the dusky sky and drink beer with friends. The restaurants that line up the river deck would take a month to sample! If you more of a party person then they even have a Ministry of Sound, which has not 1 but 5 whole discs.

Do visit if you are in Singapore sometime!